Carrier racks for motor vehicles exist in a wide variety of designs, including both roof-mountable and rear-mountable racks. Roof racks are &:he most common due to the ease by which they can be clamped to door openings or rain gutters, and their lack of interference with bumpers, doors and other features on the car's body.
Roof racks have certain drawbacks, however. Large items such as bicycles are awkward to mount onto and remove from roof racks, and two people are often needed. Stability is also a problem with upright loads such as bicycles. When used alone, roof racks generally provide support only from the bottom. Additional support and stabilization require additional hardware such as fork mounts and upright mounts. Fork mounts attach to the front forks of the bicycle, and require removal of the front wheel. Upright mounts grip a portion of the bicycle frame without removing the wheels, but frequently interfere with accessories on the bicycle such as pumps, waterbottles and cables, and do damage to paint and decals. In either case, these mounts are additional hardware requiring their own secure attachment to the roof rack.
Rear mounted carriers are generally secured to the vehicle at the rear bumper plus various points on the vehicle body, including the surface of the trunk door and the trunk door's upper edge, or the surface and top edge of a top-hinged rear door such as a hatchback. These are complex mountings, necessary in achieving stable and secure attachment of these carriers to the vehicle. As a result, these carriers are difficult to assemble and to remove for purposes of storage when not in use.
The mounting of bicycles to these rear-mounted carriers is also problematic. The most common mounting method involves attachment of the frame of the bicycle to the carrier, with little or no means of preventing the bicycle from swinging or moving with respect to the carrier. The result in many cases is that &:he bicycles contact the vehicle when the vehicle is in mo&:ion and do damage to the vehicle's surface finish. When two or more bicycles are held simultaneously, most carriers provide little in the way of preventing the bicycles from contacting and rubbing against each other.
Also, the method of mounting at the bicycle frame is itself damaging to the finish on the frame, which is generally a surface of high cosmetic value. Furthermore, in many cases, these carriers hold the bicycle too close to the ground, with the result that they contact the curb when one is trying to park the vehicle. Still further, the carrier itself frequently has bulky protruding parts which make parking difficult when the carrier is not in use.
The present invention provides a rear mountable carrier rack which overcomes these problems and offers a number of advantages.
In embodiments in which the rack is used for a bicycle, the rack supports the bicycle at four points on the wheels, one above and one below the center of each of the front and rear wheels. This is done with no contact between the rack and the bicycle frame, and yet with a stable and secure grasp of the bicycle avoiding contact at any surface-finished parts on either the bicycle or the vehicle.
The four-point support is achieved by support brackets, including upper brackets hooking under the rim of each wheel above the wheel center, and lower brackets containing straps or the like to tightly loop around or grasp the base of each wheel. In preferred embodiments, the brackets are pivotally mounted to the rack frame so that they can be rotated from an open or operating position to a closed position when not in use. In addition, stabilizing and locking features are supplied for each position.
In preferred embodiments, the straps on the lower bracket include a buckle which both adjusts the strap length and attaches in a removable manner to the bracket. The means of attachment is such that the buckle must be rotated to a position parallel to the bracket to be removed, this position being perpendicular to the position which the buckle occupies when the strap is in use. The fixed end of the strap is looped around a post inside a cavity in the bracket, the cavity opening to one side so that the strap is disengageable for easy replacement.
In further embodiments of the invention, the rack uses the rear bumper of the vehicle for its primary support, and is secured in place by tension-bearing straps at both the top of the rack and the bottom. The upper straps attach to a suitable opening or protrusion (such as a door frame or rain gutter) on the vehicle body, and the lower straps pass underneath the vehicle to engage the chassis. Contact with the rear bumper is achieved by bumper guides or stops on the rack, and in preferred embodiments, the bumper guides are in the shape of inverted L's contacting the top and rear bumper surfaces only.
In further preferred embodiments, attachment of the upper straps to the vehicle is achieved by a combination of a hook and resilient pad or plate which bends under tension around the curvature of the hook. With the hook and the resilient plate both inserted in the gap at the edge of a door such as a trunk lid or hatchback door, the hook and plate together apply an expansion force against the two sides of the gap, thereby making the hook secure.
In still further preferred embodiments, the carrier rack contains upper and lower rails which are each in halves so that the carrier can be disassembled for storage purposes. The halves are held together by an attachment mechanism which permits assembly and disassembly without tools.
Further features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the description which follows.